nightfall at Madame Smolensk's.
The Baynes' boys dashed into the garden at the sound of wheels. "Mamma??mamma!
it's uncle Mac!" these innocents cried, as they ran to the railings. "Uncle Mac!
what could bring him? Oh! they are going to send me to him! they are going to
send me to him!" thought Charlotte, starting on her bed. And on this, I daresay,
a certain locket was kissed more vehemently than ever.
"I say, Ma!" cries the ingenious Moira, jumping back to the house; "it's uncle
Mac, and aunt Mac, too!"
"What?" cries mamma, with anything but pleasure in her voice; and then turning
to the dining-room, where her husband still sate, she called out, "General!
here's MacWhirter and Emily!"
Mrs. Baynes gave her sister a very grim kiss.
"Dearest Eliza, I thought it was such a good opportunity of coming, and that I
might be so useful, you know!" pleads Emily.
"Thank you. How do you do, Mac Whirter?" says the grim g?n?rale.
"Glad to see you, Baynes, my boy!"
"How d'ye do, Emily? Boys, bring your uncle's traps. Didn't know Emily was
coming, Mac. Hope there's room for her!" sighs the general, coming forth from
his parlour.
The major was struck by the sad looks and pallor of his brother-in-law. "By
George! Baynes, you look as yellow as a guinea. How's Tom Bunch?"
"Come into this room along with me. Have some brandly-and-water, Mac.??Auguste!
O de vie, O sho!" calls the general; and Auguste, who out of the new comer's six
packages has daintily taken one very small mackintosh cushion, says, "Comment?
encore du grog, g?n?ral and, shrugging his shoulders, disappears to procure the
refreshment at his leisure.
The sisters disappear to their embraces; the brothers-in-law retreat to the
salle-?-manger, where General Baynes has been sitting, gloomy and lonely, for
half an hour past, thinking of his quarrel with his old comrade, Bunch. He and
Bunch have been chums for more than forty years. They have been in action
together, and honourably mentioned in the same report. They have had a great
regard for each other; and each knows the other is an obstinate old mule, and,
in a quarrel, will die rather than give way. They have had a dispute out of
which there is only one issue. Words have passed which no man, however old, by
George! can brook from any friend, however intimate, by Jove! No wonder Baynes
is grave. His family is large; his means are small. To-morrow he may be under
fire of an old friend's pistol. In such an extremity he knows how each will
behave. No wonder, I say, the general is solemn.
"What's in the wind now, Baynes?" asks the major, after a little drink and a
long silence. "How is poor little Char?"
"Infernally ill??I mean behaved infernally ill," says the general, biting his
lips.
"Bad business! Bad business! Poor little child!" cries the major.
"Insubordinate little devil!" says the pale general, grinding his teeth. "We'll
see which shall be master!"
"What! you have had words?"
"At this table, this very day. She sat here and defied her mother and me, by
George! and flung out of the room like a tragedy queen. She must be tamed, Mac,
or my name's not Baynes."
Mac Whirter knew his relative of old, and that this quiet, submissive man, when
angry, worked up to a white heat as it were. "Sad affair; hope you'll both come
round, Baynes," sighs the major, trying bootless common-places; and seeing this
last remark had no effect, he bethought him of recurring to their mutual friend.
"How's Tom Bunch?" the major asked, cheerily.
At this question Baynes grinned in such a ghastly way that MacWhirter eyed him
with wonder. "Colonel Bunch is very well," the general said, in dismal voice;
"at least, he was, half an hour ago. He was sitting there;" and he pointed to an
empty spoon lying in an empty beaker, whence the spirit and water had departed.
"What has been the matter, Baynes?" asked the major. "Has anything happened
between you and Tom?"
"I mean that, half an hour ago, Colonel Bunch used words to me which I'll bear
from no man alive: and you have arrived just in the nick of time, Mac Whirter,
to take my message to him. Hush! here's the drink."
"Voici, Messieurs!" Auguste at length has brought up a second supply of
brandy-and-water. The veterans mingled their jorums; and whilst his
brother-in-law spoke, the alarmed MacWhirter sipped occasionally, intentusque
ora tenebat.
CHAPTER XI. I CHARGE YOU, DROP YOUR DAGGERS!
General Baynes began the story which you and I have heard at length. He told it
in his own way. He grew very angry with himself whilst defending himself. He had
to abuse Philip very fiercely, in order to excuse his own act of treason. He had
to show that his act was not his act; that, after all, he never had promised;
and that, if he had promised, Philip's atrocious conduct ought to absolve him
from any previous promise. I do not wonder that the general was abusive, and out
of temper. Such a crime as he was committing can't be performed cheerfully by a
man who is habitually gentle, generous, and honest. I do not say that men cannot
cheat, cannot lie, cannot inflict torture, cannot commit rascally actions,
without in the least losing their equanimity; but these are men habitually
false, knavish, and cruel. They are accustomed to break their promises, to cheat
their neighbours in bargains, and what not. A roguish word or action more or
less is of little matter to them: their remorse only awakens after detection,
and they don't begin to repent till they come sentenced out of the dock. But
here was an ordinarily just man withdrawing from his promise, turning his back
on his benefactor, and justifying himself to himself by maligning the man whom
he injured. It is not an uncommon event, my dearly beloved brethren and esteemed
miserable sister sinners; but you like to say a preacher is "cynical" who admits
this sad truth?? and, perhaps, don't care to hear about the subject on more than
one day in the week.
So, in order to make out some sort of case for himself, our poor good old
General Baynes chose to think and declare that Philip was so violent,
ill-conditioned, and abandoned a fellow, that no faith ought to be kept with
him; and that Colonel Bunch had behaved with such brutal insolence that Baynes
must call him to account. As for the fact that there was another, a richer, and
a much more eligible suitor, who was likely to offer for his daughter, Baynes
did not happen to touch on this point at all; preferring to speak of Philip's
hopeless poverty, disreputable conduct, and gross and careless behaviour.
Now MacWhirter, having, I suppose, little to do at Tours, had read Mrs. Baynes's
letters to her sister Emily, and remembered them. Indeed, it was but very few
months since Eliza Baynes's letters had been full of praise of Philip, of his
love for Charlotte, and of his noble generosity in foregoing the great claim
which he had upon the general, his mother's careless trustee. Philip was the
first suitor Charlotte had had: in her first glow of pleasure, Charlotte's
r />
mother had covered yards of paper with compliments, interjections, and those
scratches or dashes under her words, by which some ladies are accustomed to
point their satire or emphasize their delight. He was an admirable young
man??wild, but generous, handsome, noble! He had forgiven his father thousands
and thousands of pounds which the doctor owed him??all his mother's fortune; and
he had acted most nobly by her trustees??that she must say, though poor dear
weak Baynes was one of them, Baynes who was as simple as a child! Major Mac and
his wife had agreed that Philip's forbearance was very generous and kind, but
after all that there was no special cause for rapture at the notion of their
niece marrying a struggling young fellow without a penny in the world; and they
had been not a little amused with the change of tone in Eliza's later letters,
when she began to go out in the great world, and to look coldly upon poor,
penniless Firmin, her hero of a few months since. Then Emily remembered how
Eliza had always been fond of great people; how her head was turned by going to
a few parties at Government House; how absurdly she went on with that little
creature Fitzrickets (because he was an Honourable, forsooth) at Dumdum. Eliza
was a good wife to Baynes; a good mother to the children; and made both ends of
a narrow income meet with surprising dexterity; but Emily was bound to say of
her sister Eliza, that a more, And when the news came at length that Philip was
to be thrown overboard, Emily clapped her hands together, and said to her
husband, "Now, Mac, didn't I always tell you so? If she could get a fashionable
husband for Charlotte, I knew my sister would put the doctor's son to the door!"
That the poor child would suffer considerably, her aunt was assured. Indeed,
before her own union with Mac, Emily had undergone heartbreakings and pangs of
separation on her own account. The poor child would want comfort and
companionship. She would go to fetch her niece. And though the major said, "My
dear, you want to go to Paris, and buy a new bonnet," Mrs. MacWhirter spurned
the insinuation, and came to Paris from a mere sense of duty.
So Baynes poured out his history of wrongs to his brother-in-law, who marvelled
to hear a man, ordinarily chary of words and cool of demeanour, so angry and so
voluble. If he had done a bad action, at least, after doing it, Baynes had the
grace to be very much out of humour. If I ever, for my part, do anything wrong
in my family, or to them, I accompany that action with a furious rage and
blustering passion. I won't have wife or children question it. No querulous
Nathan of a family friend (or an incommodious conscience, may be) shall come and
lecture me about my ill-doings. No??no. Out of the house with him! Away, you
preaching bugbear, don't try to frighten me! Baynes, I suspect, to browbeat,
bully, and outtalk the Nathan pleading in his heart??Baynes will outbawl that
prating monitor, and thrust that inconvenient preacher out of sight, out of
hearing, drive him with angry words from our gate. Ah! in vain we expel him; and
bid John say, not at home! There he is when we wake, sitting at our bed-foot. We
throw him overboard for daring to put an oar in our boat. Whose ghastly head is
that looking up from the water and swimming alongside us, row we never so
swiftly? Fire at him. Brain him with an oar, one of you, and pull on! Flash goes
the pistol. Surely that oar has stove the old skull in? See! there comes the
awful companion popping up out of water again, and crying, "Remember, remember,
I am here, I am here!" Baynes had thought to bully away one monitor by the
threat of a pistol, and here was another swimming alongside of his boat. And
would you have it otherwise, my dear reader, for you, for me? That you and I
shall commit sins, in this, and ensuing years, is certain; but I hope??I hope
they won't be past praying for. Here is Baynes, having just done a bad action,
in a dreadfully wicked, murderous, and dissatisfied state of mind. His chafing,
bleeding temper is one raw; his whole soul one rage, and wrath, and fever.
Charles Baynes, thou old sinner, I pray that heaven may turn thee to a better
state of mind. I will kneel down by thy side, scatter ashes on my own bald pate,
and we will quaver out Peccavimus together.
"In one word, the young man's conduct has been so outrageous and disreputable
that I can't, Mac, as a father of a family, consent to my girl's marrying. Out
of a regard for her happiness, it is my duty to break off the engagement," cries
the general, finishing the story.
"Has he formally released you from that trust business?" asked the major.
"Good heavens, Mac!" cries the general, turning very red. "You know I am as
innocent of all wrong towards him as you are!"
"Innocent??only you did not look to your trust??"
"I think ill of him, sir. I think he is a wild, reckless, overbearing young
fellow," calls out the general, very quickly, "who would make my child
miserable; but I don't think he is such a blackguard as to come down on a
retired elderly man with a poor family??a numerous family; a man who has bled
and fought for his sovereign in the Peninsula, and in India, as the Army List
will show you, by George. I don't think Firmin will be such a scoundrel as to
come down on me, I say; and I must say, MacWhirter, I think it most unhandsome
of you to allude to it??most unhandsome, by George!"
"Why, you are going to break off your bargain with him; why should he keep his
compact with you?" asks the gruff major.
"Because," shouted the general, "it would be a sin and a shame that an old man
with seven children, and broken health, who has served in every place??yes, in
the West and East Indies, by George!??in Canada??in the Peninsula, and at New
Orleans;??because he has been deceived and humbugged by a miserable scoundrel of
a doctor into signing a sham paper, by George! should be ruined, and his poor
children and wife driven to beggary, by Jove! as you seem to recommend young
Firmin to do, Jack MacWhirter; and I'll tell you what, Major MacWhirter, I take
it dee'd unfriendly of you; and I'll trouble you not to put your oar into my
boat, and meddle with my affairs, that's all, and I'll know who's at the bottom
of it, by Jove! It's the grey mare, Mac??it's your better half, MacWhirter??
it's that confounded, meddling, sneaking, backbiting, domineering??"
"What next?" roared the major. "Ha, ha, ha! Do you think I don't know, Baynes,
who has put you on doing what I have no hesitation in calling a most sneaking
and rascally action??yes, a rascally action, by George! I am not going to mince
matters! Don't come your Major-General or your Mrs. Major-General over me! It's
Eliza that has set you on. And if Tom Bunch has been telling you that you have
been breaking from your word, and are acting shabbily, Tom is right; and you may
get somebody else to go out with you, General Baynes, for, by George, I won't!"
"Have you come all the way from Tours, Mac, in order to insult me?" asks the
general.
"I came to do you a friendly turn; to take charge of your poor
girl, upon whom
you are being very hard, Baynes. And this is the reward I get! Thank you. No
more grog! What I have had is rather too strong for me already." And the major
looks down with an expression of scorn at the emptied beaker, the idle spoon
before him.
As the warriors were quarrelling over their cups, there came to them a noise as
of brawling and of female voices without. "Mais, madame!" pleads Madame
Smolensk, in her grave way. "Taisez-vous, madame, laissez moi tranquille, s'il
vous plais!" exclaims the well-known voice of Mrs. General Baynes, which I own
was never very pleasant to me, either in anger or good-humour. "And your
Little,??who tries to sleep in my chamber!" again pleads the mistress of the
boarding-house. "Vous n'avez pas droit d'appeler Mademoiselle Baynes petite!"
calls out the general's lady. And Baynes, who was fighting and quarrelling
himself just now, trembled when he heard her. His angry face assumed an alarmed
expression. He looked for means of escape. He appealed for protection to Mac
Whirter, whose nose he had been ready to pull anon. Samson was a mighty man, but
he was a fool in the hands of a woman. Hercules was a brave man and a strong,
but Omphale twisted him round her spindle. Even so Baynes, who had fought in
India, Spain, America, trembled before the partner of his bed and name.
It was an unlucky afternoon. Whilst the husbands had been quarrelling in the
dining-room over brandy-and-water, the wives, the sisters, had been fighting
over their tea in the salon. I don't know what the other boarders were about.
Philip never told me. Perhaps they had left the room to give the sisters a free
opportunity for embraces and confidential communication. Perhaps there were no
lady boarders left. Howbeit, Emily and Eliza had tea; and before that refreshing
meal was concluded, those dear women were fighting as hard as their husbands in
the adjacent chamber.
Eliza, in the first place, was very angry at Emily's coming without invitation.
Emily, on her part, was angry with Eliza for being angry. "I am sure, Eliza,"
said the spirited and injured MacWhirter, "that is the third time you have
alluded to it since we have been here. Had you and all your family come to
Tours, Mac and I would have made them welcome??children and all; and I am sure
yours make trouble enough in a house."
"A private house is not like a boarding-house, Emily. Here Madame makes us pay
frightfully for extras," remarks Mrs. Baynes.
"I am sorry I came, Eliza. Let us say no more about it. I can't go away
to-night," says the other.
"And most unkind it is that speech to make, Emily. Any more tea?"
"Most unpleasant to have to make that speech, Eliza. To travel a whole day and
night??and I never able to sleep in a diligence??to hasten to my sister because
I thought she was in trouble, because I thought a sister might comfort her; and
to be received as you??re??as you??oh, oh, oh??boh! How stoopid I am!" A
handkerchief dries the tears: a smelling-bottle restores a little composure.
"When you came to us at Dumdum, with two??o??o children in the whooping-cough, I
am sure Mac and I gave you a very different welcome."
The other was smitten with a remorse. She remembered her sister's kindness in
former days. "I did not mean, sister, to give you pain," she said. "But I am
very unhappy myself, Emily. My child's conduct is making me most unhappy."
"And very good reason you have to be unhappy, Eliza, if woman ever had!" says
the other.
"Oh, indeed, yes!" gasps the general's lady.
"If any woman ought to feel remorse, Eliza Baynes, I am sure it's you. Sleepless
nights! What was mine in the diligence, compared to the nights you must have? I
said so to myself. 'I am wretched,' I said, 'but what must she be?'"
"Of course, as a feeling mother, I feel that poor Charlotte is unhappy, my
dear."
"But what makes her so, my dear?" cries Mrs. MacWhirter, who presently showed